Evening Standard Comment: Dominic Raab should answer for the Afghan debacle

The withdrawal of British forces from Afghanistan has been labelled the greatest foreign policy debacle since the Suez Crisis.

As desperate Afghans — many of whom had supported our troops and diplomats — tried to escape, it now appears that parts of the Foreign Office had effectively abandoned their posts.

In evidence given to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Raphael Marshall, who worked at the department as a civil servant, called the UK evacuation “chaotic”, “dysfunctional” and alleged that only five per cent of Afghan nationals who applied for help in fleeing the country under a UK scheme received help.

Furthermore, he revealed that at one point he was the sole person monitoring an inbox where pleas for help were directed.

This testimony corroborates the facts already in our possession. That the then foreign secretary Dominic Raab was on holiday as Kabul fell, that the evacuation was hampered by overbearing bureaucracy, and even that time and resources were taken up to fly out animals.

It also calls into question Raab’s leadership after he returned from the beach, but before he was given a title bump to deputy prime minister.

These accusations go to the heart of government and reveal an incomprehensible lack of grip over an unfolding humanitarian crisis. It is remarkable that senior ministers are yet to be held fully accountable for the failures in the evacuation and no minister has taken the rap.

Both on a human and diplomatic level, our friends in Afghanistan deserved better than what they got.